Self Made Slum Lord

Samson
Samson
Jul 21, 2017 · 5 min read

Redeveloping West Baltimore — One shitty rowhouse at a time

In 2012, I told my business partner I was going to buy a house in Pigtown, Baltimore. If you’ve never been to Baltimore, Maryland, prior to 2012, Pigtown was the taint of Baltimore. West Baltimore by comparison is Baltimore’s violent, drug ridden, government-created blighted asshole. The first line of its Wiki page pretty much sums it up:

“West Baltimore is a huge section of the city notorious for violent and other drug-related crime, but also for its unique culture, endless streets of old Baltimore rowhouses with their marble stoops, and sprawling parklands.”

After I bought the property, she admitted that she thought if she didn’t remind me, I’d forget about it. Fast forward to 2017 and I’m on track to acquire about 15 properties this year. I say, “about 15” because you never know how it’s going to go in foreclosure court. Meanwhile, my business partner is still going strong with her silent strategy; while I aim for Slum Lord of the Year 2017, and Baltimore follows Washington DC’s gentrifying agenda.

Slum Lord Ambitions

Most of the properties I’ve acquired have been via Baltimore City’s annual tax lien auction. Baltimore’s tax auction is hands down the worst vestiges of capitalism in action. It’s a super fucking predatory practice whereby developers, flippers and investors steal (or buy) people’s houses through a tax system designed to keep people segregated and poor. The system is in fact so predatory that even poor white folks lose their properties at roughly the same rate as poor Black and Brown folks. Rest assured, when I am the largest real estate developer in Baltimore, I’ll lobby hard to end this heinous and egregious practice. But in the meantime, let me share a few points to the method to the madness.

When I moved to DC in 2008 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida you could not have paid me to buy a house in the U Street area of Washington, DC. At the time U Street’s wiki probably rivaled West Baltimore’s. It was as though the heroin and opioid epidemic capital choose the corner of U Street and Georgia Ave NW for its front lawn. Fast forward a decade, a city agenda facilitating gentrification and taxation without representation — and a 450 square foot thing called an “A-podment” will run you $3k a month to rent. The gentrification of DC was exceptionally rapid. Like a story of someone being diagnosed with cancer one day and dying within a week. I never saw it coming because I wasn’t looking for it. In West Baltimore, I’ve been looking since 2012, and this time I’m so ready I’ve already started. Here are 10 things I look for in properties:

  1. Within 6 blocks of a metro station (the closer the better)

2. Adjacent to a park (ensures there is always street parking)

3. Off-street parking

4. Yards that are < 500 square feet

5. Zoned mixed use

6. Located at the top of the hill (homes at the bottom of hills flood more often)

7. Empty lots next to the property (easier to buy, consolidate and tada! bigger yard or off-street parking)

8. Within line of sight of a school

9. How is the roof / structure? (think termites and subsidence)

10. Within 6 blocks of a grocery store (Let’s be honest, West Baltimore is a food desert. That’s more of an aspirational bullet.)

My goal is to own properties (preferably vacant lots) within 6 blocks of Marc/subway/metro stations, bordering parks and schools, and along major transportation arteries. Why? The house I rent in DC was purchased for $118k in 2001. In 2017, the property is valued at $815k. Property prices in Baltimore are similarly rising. They are rising as 30 somethings from DC migrate to Baltimore. Bringing their combined incomes and six figures to a ghetto near you. That DINK lifestyle: Duel Income No Kids.

Regulations Create Slums and the Lords that Govern Them

Disclaimer — I am not actually a slum lord. I rent some amazingly restored rowhouses to great tenants. Ok, mostly great tenants. Its fucking West Baltimore, shit gets real in communities with an oasis of income in a sea of object poverty.

Nibble on this tidbit of a fact — If you currently live in West Baltimore you have the same life expectancy as someone who lives in North Korea.

As a small business, as an entrepreneur, as a fledgling developer, I am forever floored at the regulations that keep Baltimore impoverished. Did you know, it costs Baltimore City tens of thousands of dollars per year to maintain vacant houses — literally paying to sustain the status quo of blight? WTF?

Four ways Baltimore City could help entrepreneurs and startups with developer sized ambitions:

1. Just start bulldozing — The City is going to pay to maintain crumbling buildings. Bulldoze and settle it in court. It sounds counterintuitive, but 8 years later and a class action suit settling in court will be cheaper than maintaining blighted communities.

2. Give entrepreneurs the properties — with the only catch being that they have 18 months to either restore them or demolish them and turn the lots into green space or the city gets them back. The City is already paying to do nothing with these properties. Give someone else a try. On a personal note, I’d crowdfund the shit out of that development initiative.

3. Reduce the paper work required to demolish a building. You simply cannot have historically-preserved blight. Maintaining the aesthetic and architectural “integrity” of a slum is the essence of bureaucratic retardation.

4. 20-year tax holidays — provide incentives to redevelop properties. It annoys me to pay $5 a month, per vacant lot, for water service that I don’t use. So what incentive is it for me to develop these lots, when they are surrounded by historically-preserved blight?

As a Self-Made Slum Lord, I’ll admit I didn’t inherit my wealth. Shit, I’d go so far as to say I’m not even rich, much less wealthy — but I am ambitious. I believe that as a person of color (my mom’s Mexican from Watts, my dad’s was a OG from Compton — a real West Side story if there ever was), I’d like to see a community that includes the actual people who build it. Not just the most recent imports who can afford the new faux luxury of gentrification. I’ll admit this is an ironic ambition coming from a kid born in East Texas and who most of the time calls Florida home. I also believe that it falls to dreamers such as myself, to dare think that we can play a role in positively impacting our communities and shape community development. I choose to invest in West Baltimore because I love the sense of community from Reservoir Hill to Edmondson Village. Choose something that you believe in and invest accordingly. In the case of West Baltimore, I look forward to renting your elementary aged kids “A-podments.”

My name is Samson. I’m a human, an anthropologist and an aspiring community developer. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter or Instagram @HustleFundBaby. I would say thoughts are my own — but I probably stole them from a woman.

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Samson

Written by

Samson

Cheerleader of all things startup and entrepreneur. Life's a hustle, invest in something worthy of you. @AxesAndEggs @UNHLaw #Blockchain #Cryptocurrencies

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